Wednesday, September 18th - Well...And That's That in Posso's Prompts

My Monday night was one of calmness and relaxation. Work was slow and quiet and I was done rather early for a Monday. Bed and Netflix sounded amazing at 1230am for once and as I was getting comfortable, Sabrina called. She wanted to know if I was tired yet or if I wanted to pick her up and take her to the casino to be a degenerate for a few hours. My sleep schedule is so wonky that I knew I’d be in bed awake until the sun came up anyway so I decided that gambling with her wouldn’t be such a bad idea, right? After all, I had just bought into the whole stars and full moon blessing me with a spiritual energy and blah blah so I figured that I could fathom to see if this rang true and that I’d have good luck.

Sabrina and I arrived at the casino around 1am. We decided we would pool what money we wanted to gamble with together and anything we won we’d essentially spilt in half - we both had debts we could pay if we hit something big. Thanks to the large win from the beginning of the summer, the casino gives me a free hundred dollars every week to play. I set out with my players card and did that and after I furiously spun through a hundred dollars, I had won eight bucks. Yippee. Already having a blast. After a few loud sighs and some longing stares at the row of machines in which I could bet $25 a spin and where I had won $13,000, I found Sabrina, double fisting mix drinks and pushing buttons faster than the computer could keep up with. Knowing that I didn’t want any part of that, I told her I was taking my half to my lucky machine to see how much I could win. Not putting any attention, hope or concern into it, I put a $100 bill in the machine and audibly announced “Fuck it, I’m betting $15 a spin.” I leaned back and pressed the button once. I watched the screen flash as I hit the bonus feature in the first spin. Sabrina wandered over as the feature was slowly playing out and a small crowd started to gather after noticing the flashing lights and hearing the whimsical yet corny Vegas style music. At the end, I had won $1800, which by law in the state of Wisconsin, anything over $1200 is deemed taxable and has to be paid out by a casino attendant. After the commotion was over and the crowd dispersed, I moved to the machine directly next to it. I put in another $100 bill. I clicked $15 and hit spin. On the very first spin, I entered the bonus round again. At this point, Sabrina is jumping around, spilling her whiskey all over, dropping her purse and basically just falling apart but enjoying the scene. I’m getting nervous as its getting close to bar time and I’m already not supposed to be driving and now I’m thinking I’ll have to drive this drunk, and (eventually molly-filled as I’d come to find out later) drugged out girl back home. The bonus netted another hand pay of $1800 and in less than 20 minutes, we’re up $3000. I spin around to find Sabrina after collecting the money and I see she’s jumping up and down because she’s in a bonus on the machine she’s on. $3000 later and we are close to being up six grand in an hour and we started with $500 between the two of us. Sober me is doing the math, knowing that I could use this bonus money to get out of debts that I was planning on having to pay for an extended period of time. It’s now 2am, alcohol is done and the drunks are starting to wander out and drive home, when they clearly shouldn’t.

I calmed down and found some other machines that I enjoy that you can’t bet more than $2 on and was just mindlessly enjoying the high of gambling and winning and spending the money in my head when out of the corner of my eye I notice this blue haired hurricane, bowling over chairs in a row, arms flapping, drinks sloshing all over the place, arguing with an employee who’s trying to do her job and take away the alcohol since it was after legal time to have it. Spit was flying and unintelligible words were being mumbled (reminded me of what I’ve heard I sounded like drunk in stories told by friends and love interests) and as I grabbed her by the hand and told her to settle down, I looked into her eyes. The hate I felt for the lack of what I could not see staring back at me still makes me angry writing this. She was gone. Sure, she was reacting and responding but clearly at this point it was conditioned response. There was nothing in those eyes except dime sized pupils. I’ve dated enough girls and have seen enough customers as a bartender to know when someones doing drugs on top of drinking and at some point, she had sniffed, licked, popped something and didn’t tell me and now was so far gone she couldn’t tell me. After coercing her to calm down and drink a water, she grabbed me by the face and said, “I love you, tell me you love me. Let’s go home.”

The mistake I made in this situation is right here. We should have left and I shouldn’t have worried about driving, I could have bought a limo for the ride home. Instead, I was worried about not having my car so I could drive around (illegally, mind you, but at this point I don’t care, and we’ll get to that) and I didn’t want to be on the road with drunks at bar time and get caught, so I said, lets go to the cafe and sit and eat and wait a bit until the roads calm down. A fight ensued in which I was told that “I have a gambling problem (I’m an addict so, I mean, truth) and I am just a piece of shit that isn’t important and is afraid of love and commitment (I mean, I won’t even argue with the drunk logic) and that I am doomed to be cursed and nothing the sun, moon or stars could say would change that (at this point, I started laughing.)

Needless to say, I reacted as badly as I could, and said, ‘You know what, fine. Sit here and I’m going to fuck around for a little bit until I feel safe enough to be on the road with you.” I dicked around, slowly dwindling the profit I still had with me. Mind you, I had been giving her all the money because she was more trustworthy with it and, at least to my knowledge, wouldn’t be as stupid as I am and go back to the $25 a spin machines and lose it all. I walked back to the cafe area to see how she was doing and she wasn’t there. Okay, I thought, she probably calmed down and is gambling somewhere. After pacing the casino I finally went back to where we started, and I saw her there, sprawled out on two chairs, playing those machines, two at a time. After quietly approaching her, I saw that she had her wallet out, there were bills all over the place and looking at the slot machines, she was betting $25 a spin on both machines, starting and stopping them faster than I’ve ever seen any granny gamble pennies away.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked, not too calmly.
“I’m sick of you thinking you need money to fix any problems. I love you! You fucking idiot. It isn’t about money. I just lost most of it. I don’t even know how much.”
The response I got took me a back and in the process, she lost about a thousand dollars in 45 seconds.

There were bills, ones and fives, scattered on the floor, on top of the machines, on her chairs. Her purse and wallet were open and there wasn’t anything resembling a blue faced hundred dollar bill anywhere.

“Sabrina, where is the money?” I asked, with a tremble of anger in my voice.
“If there’s none there, it’s gone,” she proclaimed smiling.

After talking to her sober and asking her how much money she had actually brought with her, I figured she had lost close to seven thousand dollars in the 15 minutes I left her alone. Left speechless and noticeably upset, I walked off and went to a dark corner to gamble my last two hundred dollars away. Thankfully I hit another bonus feature and had another hand pay of $1600 and the casino attendant couldn’t contain his excitement.

“Man, you’re running hot tonight! Must be that full moon, eh?!”

If only you fucking knew, bud.

Holding another $1200 in cash but completely numb to anything going on, I walked up to a half asleep Sabrina, helped her gather her shit, put her arm around my head and walked her out to the car.

“Good, now we can go home and fuck,” she smirked.

I was silent for the entire drive and turned up the radio to drown her bitching and ranting. There were only bits and pieces heard about how she was putting a curse on my life, I won’t ever be happy, I’ll die sick and alone, yada yada yada. The slightest fuck wasn’t being given at that point. When I pulled up to her street, the amazing part was she thought I was coming up with her.

Really? Think I want to have sex after that?

Literal push came to shove and I got her out of the car and told her I’d talk to her tomorrow and drove off to my home. It was now 5am and I was shaking. The conversation I was having with myself was one that someone certifiably crazy would have - Should have just driven into oncoming traffic with her in the car - why am I attracted to females filled to the brim with crazy - do I really just deserve everything she said? I was so worked up I stayed awake until 11am and finally crashed for the day. I woke up at 7pm, late for a meetup with poker friends. There were 7 missed phone calls and a dozen text messages I hadn’t answered. Knowing I should get it over with sooner rather than later, I stopped at Sabrina’s. The sob story fell on deaf ears. I told her I didn’t hate her and I enjoyed her company but everything that happened the previous night was why I wasn’t convinced I needed to be in a relationship with her. More tears, followed by ‘will I ever see you again, will you ever forgive me?’ led to a maybe we need some space and some quiet time between us and from there turned into yelling, screaming and sobbing.’ I couldn’t handle it anymore and just left and drove off to my poker destination. After about an hour, I was quickly out of the tournament and I was extremely dissatisfied and not even close to being distracted enough to what I wanted to be.

Realizing that I had not consumed anything for over 24 hours, I decided the first place I should go was to The Pine Cone Cafe. This place is the epitome of a 24 hour truck stop diner, complete with cheap, greasy and amazingly tasty food, young girls and scummy truckers. They make a French toast out of a full gigantic cinnamon roll and if I finally induce diabetes upon myself, this is what I will consume to kill myself with a sugar spike. After filling myself with a mass buffet that cost $13, I was still not satisfied with my life. Where could I go to make myself happy? What could I do that I’d feel better that wasn’t around? Wisconsin Dells is less than an hour away, they have a casino and multiple strip clubs! Off we go, driving (illegally, with expired plates) on a major highway to the dells. The cruise was set at 72 and I was humming along to whatever stretch of Halsey was playing not noticing that I was being tailed close. The vehicle then pulled along side of me like it was about to pass me, slowed down and then got back behind me.

Fuck. I knew what was coming.

Ten seconds later the lights came on. Sheriff.

Fuck. Why. I’m so dumb, but still. Really? Not speeding, following all the laws? (Well, minus the illegal driving part in the first place. Facepalm. Eyeroll. Sigh.)

After cooperating and a lengthy process about how I wasn’t supposed to be driving without the proper paperwork, he let me go in a nicer fashion than he could have. I freaked out and called around, waking up friends in Madison and Wisconsin Dells, looking for someone to come drive my car away and pick me up. Luckily, one of the feelers I put out to some of the strippers I was going to see, came back and they were off for the night. Cancelling the back up I had woke and pissed off in Madison, Ari and Stef came and got me and took me to the strip club in the Dells, smothering me with some much needed boobs in the face and Red Bull.

I still can’t help but think to this moment that somehow, some way, the witch cursed me and instead of my poor decision making, I’m just doomed. I am almost a believer. I won’t be going back to this one though. This is the end of the Sabrina chapter. Thank Glinda, Hermione and all the other good witches, I’m going to need their power soon.